Dragon

Part 5 Skating Figure Skating If you’re under 50 years old then the phrase “once upon a time Britain used to regularly win medals at this” may seem like a fairy tale to you. This year a British couple won a European silver medal and got close to a World Championship medal too. Let’s not kid ourselves this would have happened if Russia had not been banned but the ice dance partnership of Fear and Gibson have made significant progress in a short few years and have established themselves as one of the top six pairs in the world. Also in ice dance, Bekker and Hernandez won a World Junior bronze. The singles and pairs are still very weak in comparison. Speed Skating If you’re under 80 years old then the phrase “once upon a time Britain used to win medals at this” may seem like a fairy tale to you. And for the first part of the winter it still seemed like a fairy tale but then Elia Smeding placed 6th at the European Sprint Championships (including a third place finish in the 1000m). Smeding then finished 8th at the World Championships but it was the performance of her boyfriend, the Dutch born Englishman Cornelius Kersten, that really caught the attention. Kersten finished behind only the American superstar in waiting, Jordan Scholz, and Olympic champion Thomas Krol to claim GB’s first World Championship medal since the early 50s. Short Track The phrase “once upon a time Britain used to regularly win medals at this” won’t seem that strange to you but the era of Elise Christie seems to be over. Britain took two women and a man to the World Championships and never looked like providing a finalist.

Part 4 Snowboarding Men Not a great winter, Huw Nightingale did score World Cup points and gradually improve his results during the season in snowboardcross but only once did he make the top 20. However 16 year old Charlie Lane won gold at slopestyle and silver in big air at the European Youth Olympic Festival. Women A world championship and a world cup title but it could easily have been ever better. Mia Brookes won the World Slopestyle gold and was the highest qualifier in big air (pun intended). The World Junior Champion is still only 16 and is a long range favourite for Milan-Cortina. Also at big air Maisie Hill scored world cup points. Charlotte Bankes crashed out of the World Championships but recovered to win her next three World Cup events and retain her World Cup title. Mixed After Nightingale and Bankes had been foiled in their individual events the two pulled off a surprise by winning the mixed team gold at the World Championships.

Part 3 Ski Jumping Ski Jumping The two GB jumpers who competed last winter didn't compete this winter. Nordic Combined And one of them didn't compete at Nordic combined either...

Part 2 Sliding Bobsleigh Men Brad Hall had an outstanding season. He was third in the two man World Cup standings and won three times to push the Germans close in the four man standings. Added to that Hall won a silver medal at the World Championships – the first time Britain had achieved a place on the podium in a men’s race since 1966. Women A lack of money saw the women’s side of the sport being downgraded at the start of the season but there were a few encouraging results at lower levels after the New Year. Skeleton Men Whoever hired the legendary Latvia Martin Dukurs to coach the British men probably has bruises due to being patted on the back so often. After the disappointments of 2021-22 the GB squad came roaring back with new sleds and new attitudes. Matt Weston won 5 of the 8 World Cup races, the World Championships, the European Championships and was ranked #1 in the world. Oddly he didn’t win the World Cup, a bad result caused by the sled slipping out of the starting groove in an early season race having let him down. Teammate Marcus Wyatt won the first race of the season and placed third in the World Cup and fifth at the World Championships. Craig Thompson, who had an indifferent season, had a brilliant streak of form as spring approached and finished in front of Wyatt for fourth place at the Worlds Women In the women’s events success did not appear so spectacular, at least not on the surface, although Laura Deas and Brogan Crowley appeared on the World Cup podium during the season and both finished safely in the top ten of the standings despite missing races through illness. However hot on their heels are juniors Freya Tarbitt and Tabitha Stroecker who were 1-2 in the European Cup standings despite having missed two of the eight races and won medals at both the European and World Junior Championships. Mixed Britain also won silver and bronze at the World Championships through their mixed teams. Luge Can’t find any report of a British competitor this year at all.

Review of GB winter sport 2022-23 Part 1 - Skiing Alpine Skiing Men At 36, Dave Ryding is one of the oldest skiers on tour but is still a regular visitor to the top 20 in World Cup races and scored his 5th career podium finish this year. He finished 16th in the World Cup slalom rankings. Obviously though he can’t go on forever. Billy Major and Laurie Taylor both scored World Cup points but maybe haven’t made the progress we hoped of them. In slalom, Britain is the 7th best country in the world however we only have one more top hundred skier in all the other events. Women Pretty much a disastrous winter. Charlotte Guest scored a single points scoring finish all winter which was more than Alex Tilley did. Tilley fell in every race. At 39th at Slalom, Guest in now GB top ranked skier. Cross-Country Skiing Men A good year for Dave Musgrave with another World Cup medal, a top ten finish at the World Championships and he finally cracked the top ten of the World Cup distance rankings. A solid year individually for Andrew Young and James Clugnet but some great results together in the team sprint including a 6th place at the World Championships. Lower down the ladder a small injection of talent from the Canadian junior system may mean GB can field a relay team next year. Women Luckily that injection of talent from Canadians with GB parentage should kick in next winter. Really need some. Biathlon Marcus Webb finished 104th in the sprint race at the World Championships and that’s it really… Freestyle Skiing Men. There’s nothing wrong with the men’s side of the sport in the UK, it’s just that it seems a bit Meh compared to what the women are doing. In fairness Oliver Davies did win GB’s first ever World Cup ski cross medal in February and World Juniors mogul medallist Mateo Jeannesson made a breakthrough this winter but mostly the GB men are good enough to be picked for a world championships but not to reach a final Women Is it wrong to be disappointed by the fact that GB only won a single silver at the World Championships? Zoe Atkin was so close to gold in the halfpipe, Kirsty Muir, even at just 18, looks like she will be a major contender in slopestyle and big air for the next decade (barring injuries) and Gerken-Schofield is a regular top 10 finisher in moguls.

Also I think I'm right that Slovakia declared independence in the middle of the game.

A little explanation. In those days if a series of matches was tied before the final game of 5, the rules allowed the final game to be played until it concluded. Unfortunately three days in the middle of the match were completely lost to rain. On the 12th and last day England needed 50 more to win but it started raining again with three hours of play left. It didn't stop raining at all and the train to meet the ship taking them home was due to leave five hours later. One plan was for all the England players to take the ship except for the six players who still had to bat but eventually they all left for home

https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-executive-board-approves-medal-reallocations-from-olympic-games-london-2012-1

Just in case you don't know about this list. https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/recent_deaths

The IOC have had a problem with all kinds of birds ever the great mass dove grilling incident at the 1988 opening ceremony...

Rumours of some Olympic medals to be reallocated today

Quite a drop. Only Japan were better than Britain in the early 1980s.

The message I'm getting is that the decision on team sports also applies to team events in individual sport. Which means no gymnastics teams (although that was virtually certain anyway), no teams in fencing or archery, no artistic swimmers, no Medvedev and Rublev teaming up in men's doubles tennis.

News leaking out from the IOC meeting.

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1135251/iba-ioc-officials I've said this before but if boxing wants to keep a place at the Olympics it really has to dump the IBA and form a new world governing body very quickly

Other Russian sources are saying he died of a brain hemorrhage while he was sleeping. I do wonder how many times he landed on his head during training.

Result Men 1 Morales 2 Bonfim 3 Cui 4 Dunfee